Quick Roundup 52

A New Job!

Today is my first day on the job in a new position I accepted about a month ago and made official a couple of weeks ago. I made the switch for a variety of reasons I won't elaborate upon here, because I do not blog about work.

What does this mean for my blogging? I don't know yet, and probably will not know for at least a month what my new routine will be like. I think that I will ultimately have more control over my schedule most of the time, but since I want to take my opinion writing to the next level, this will not necessarily translate into more blogging.

Are One-Man Shows a Dying Breed?

Instapundit points to a post on trends in blogging at One Hand Clapping, in which Donald Sensing concludes that:

[S]ingle-author sites are the wave of the past. Group blogging, with only a few exceptions such as Instapundit (of course), is becoming the norm. I think it almost certainly because the time requirements for a single author to keep a site going are oppressive, if the site is to have a significant daily readership - say, more than 2,000. I was blessed to have attained a respectable daily readership number, but good heavens, it was work to keep it going. Group blogs are able to spread the labor, and that's why they are becoming more and more common.

...

Michelle Malkin's new and hugely successful blog, Hot Air, does seem to me to be the real wave of the future. Its outstanding layout and design and fantastic audiovisual integration make it the cutting edge blog now. Her daily "Vent" feature is short enough not to postpone viewing, can be downloaded in movie form to iPods and has a high production value. Blogging in general will have to follow her lead and sites that donÂ’t will be fighting for ever-smaller readership numbers. That means that blogging has started to move away from its "amateur hour" status and is now at the start line of becoming professionalized. While the financial costs of converting my site into this "new wave" kind of site would not be great (the software and equipment are surprisingly cheap and for podcasting, for example, are actually free), again, I simply don't have the time or frankly, the inclination. [bold added]

I suspect that he's probably right and I would add that, while the software and equipment costs would permit a one-man multimedia show, I certainly wouldn't have the time or desire to do all of that myself for free. I suspect that blogs like this one will continue to serve a purpose -- as outlets for ordinary citizens (which the big boys will pick up from time to time), as means to make social and professional contacts, and thereby as a way to become known as an author -- but that they will not normally be the path to fame and fortune in and of themselves. (But this last bit was largely true beforehand....)

As for me? I enjoy blogging too much to quit any time soon!

McCain's Inverted Priorities

In case you had any doubts that John McCain (of McCain-Feingold infamy) does not regard protecting individual rights as his top priority, this interview clip should dispel them.

He [Michael Graham] also mentioned my [John McCain's] abridgement of First Amendment rights, i.e. talking about campaign finance reform.... I know that money corrupts.... I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I'd rather have the clean government. [bold added]

In better days, such a remark would have made McCain ripe for being picked off by the Democrats. But since they no longer care about freedom of speech, either, they'll lionize him instead, and help him get his way.

Let's Roll, as an afterthought

Via the comments at Thrutch, is a good review of United 93 by Scott Holleran.

When some of the passengers finally charge the enemy-occupied cockpit, it's more of a collective push than the tightly scripted plan of some of the best and brightest minds in America. Maybe that's how it happened, but I doubt it -- those phone transcripts show an indomitable American spirit, rationally developed and applied, a fact which is missing from the movie.

Those who feel a need to see United 93 to stoke the sense of outrage at being attacked -- and of not annihilating the enemy's state sponsors -- are not going to find much beyond a visceral recreation of what was real not five years ago, and those for whom the outrage never subsided do not need to see this movie.

It sounds like, once again, Hollywood has missed a golden opportunity to make a powerful movie. Too bad.

Big Google Like Big Government

It should come as no surprise that Google, which supports tyranny in China, wants to use the United States government to reign in its competitors.

With a $10 billion advertising market at stake, Google, the fast-rising Internet star, is raising objections to the way that it says Microsoft, the incumbent powerhouse of computing, is wielding control over Internet searching in its new Web browser.

Google, which only recently began beefing up its lobbying efforts in Washington, says it expressed concerns about competition in the Web search business in recent talks with the Justice Department and the European Commission, both of which have brought previous antitrust actions against Microsoft.

The new browser includes a search box in the upper-right corner that is typically set up to send users to Microsoft's MSN search service. Google contends that this puts Microsoft in a position to unfairly grab Web traffic and advertising dollars from its competitors. [bold added]

And using government guns to force a competitor to do business the way you want him to is not unfair?!?! Google rose to prominence by being the best at what it does. It seems to have already forgotten its own secret.

Regarding Microsoft, I'm on the same page as Nick Provenzo:

Has Microsoft ever "fully fought" antitrust? Of course not. Almost eight years after the initial "finding of fact" that dammed Microsoft for the crime of improving its products, Microsoft still has not learned that there is no escaping antitrust and that it only grounds it has left in self-defense are the moral grounds. Will Microsoft ever sanction this moral crusade? I seriously doubt it. Instead, Microsoft is utterly content to sanction its victimization, and in that light, the firm deserves whatever punishment it gets. Some other innovator will have to defend his right to exist free of shackles -- this one is all too content to be ruled.

I find myself hoping that Google's effort will somehow backfire, screwing both companies -- until I realize that my rights are being infringed in the process.

Wah!

Although I completely oppose death threats like the ones Susan Sarandon received for her opposition to the American invasion of Iraq (and "war in all its forms"), I do have a question for her.

After the death threats, do you appreciate the government's role in protecting your right to freedom of speech?

I knew you did. You see, the military is doing for me what the police presumably did for you. Every day, I live under an implied death threat from meddlesome barbarians in the Middle East simply because I defy their particular brand of superstition in the process of living my own life as I see fit.

You need guns to stop domestic sociopaths from carrying out their death threats. What about those of the international variety makes it unnecessary to use force to stop them?

Blogroll Addition

I have added University Suckers, the blog of Daniel Rigby, a student at the University of South Florida, to my blogroll. In his words, "I am tired of having to read the baseless nonsense that is put in front of me everyday through our school paper, The Oracle; this blog is my response."

I particularly enjoyed this entry, "Guy Who Hates Technology Lectures Through Loud-Speaker", in which he notes the utter hypocrisy of an environmentalist.

"[Anarchist and Ted Kaczynski protege John] Zerzan has been lecturing around the country, promoting his idea of anarcho-primitivism.", let's see: Since he travels the country, I'm going to assume that he uses some form of travel, I'll go with the airplane option. While in the airport, he may grab something to eat at the concession stand. From the airport he gets in a car, and arrives at USF to tell the world of the "positive sides" of anarchy. It didn't dawn on him that man made the plane that he flew it, man made the food that he ate (and made it safe so he could eat it), and man made the car that he rode in; if I were to get into detail, I could name literally millions of things that were man-made that he engaged in from the airport to USF, from handrails to concrete. So he's using the things that he's against to convey the message of anarchism? What did he write his notes with for his lecture? Since I'm sure that he wrote them with paper and pen, this man is a walking contradiction.

And I wonder whether Zerzan would feel as comfortable "staying in contact" with Kaczynski were he still "free to roam".

Rigby also blogs at A=A and used to blog here. Check 'em out!

-- CAV